Bill Roundup: Limits On Seizure Of Assets And Mayors To Get Sexual Harassment Training

5:45 p.m.Mayors, city council members and other local elected officials in California will be required to take two hours of sexual harassment training following scandals involving politicians in San Diego and Sacramento.

Gov. Jerry Brown signed AB1661 on Thursday to require that elected city and county officials take the same online training required for supervisors at California employers with 50 or more workers. It must be completed within six months of their election and repeated every two years.

Bob Filner resigned in 2013 as mayor of San Diego after some 20 women alleged that he groped them or engaged in other inappropriate behavior.

In Sacramento, a law firm investigating an allegation against Mayor Kevin Johnson suggested he be counseled against hugging or touching people at work.

California law already requires that a person be convicted before police can seize cash or property valued under $25,000 that's believed to have been attained illegally.

Democratic Sen. Holly Mitchell of Los Angeles says police work around that law by partnering with federal agencies to seize assets before convictions, reaping millions of dollars.

The Democratic governor said Thursday that he signed SB443, Mitchell's bill to prohibit law enforcement agencies from profiting off of those partnerships in cases of suspected drug activity.

It also increases the ceiling for other crimes to $40,000.

3:30 p.m.Gov. Jerry Brown is taking action on several voting-related bills, including legislation that lays the groundwork for more California counties to conduct elections entirely through mail-in ballots.

Brown announced Thursday that he signed SB450, which allows 18 counties to set up vote centers where people could drop off mail-in ballots in the 10 days before the 2018 election. The rest could move to the system in 2020.

Lawmakers say the current voting system is outdated.

The Democratic governor also approved legislation to let voters designate anyone to turn in their ballots, and to let voters take and share photographs of their ballots on social media starting next year.

Brown vetoed a bill requiring counties to notify voters if their vote-by-mail ballot was not counted, saying counties already publish that online.